


girls become lovers who turn into mothers

by MrsNoraPalmer



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Feels, extra feels if you listen to the john mayer song, nora's sad girl hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 23:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18303773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsNoraPalmer/pseuds/MrsNoraPalmer
Summary: Nora is organizing her books in her and Ray's office when a song comes on her playlist that has her in tears. At first they're sad tears over what she didn't have, but slowly, they're happy tears about what her daughter will have.aka nora's sad girl hours but with happy feels at the end





	girls become lovers who turn into mothers

**Author's Note:**

> as per usual i blame: soph, dee, and beth for this

Nora wasn’t expecting them to live in the Ivy Town house full time so soon. They figured that they’d be living on the Waverider for at least the first few months of Tori’s life before they decided what they wanted to do.

But Nora somehow found herself in front of a massive floor to ceiling bookshelf in Ray’s office, their office, whatever he wanted to call it, organizing all of her books. The ones on the lower shelf she could get but at six months pregnant she didn’t want to risk reaching above a shelf that was taller than her.

So she was simply organizing the books into stacks in the order of how she wanted them on her bookshelf and would wait for Ray to return to put them on the respective shelves. Nora absently stroked her expanding belly as she combed through the books in the piles around her.

Certain genres dictated certain phases of her life. When she was in prison all she had were the paperbacks Mona brought her. When she was out and on the Waverider she fabricated more well known books and devoured them, trying to get a taste for all of the literary cultural references she had missed out on. Now that she was pregnant it was similar to a food craving, all Nora wanted to read were murder mysteries.

Not being a full time legend anymore and nearing her nesting stage of pregnancy, Nora devoured murder mysteries. Ray made it a tradition to come home with a new one every few days. He wasn’t sure how he he felt about her reading to the baby but she said reading was good because it got the baby used to the sound of her voice. But he wasn’t sure reading about murder and other heinous crimes was what the doctors that wrote that advice probably had in mind. Nora just called him a fuddy-duddy and continued reading her murder mysteries to their unborn baby.

Tori kicked her lightly and Nora placed her hand where she had kicked. So much was changing. Not just in her body but around her. She couldn’t be happier though. Nora had had 20 years of insanity. She didn’t mind one bit that she was getting a whole dose of normalcy all at once. Living in a perfect house with her perfect husband carrying their perfect baby. It was all surreal. Nora couldn’t believe it was her life. She tried to think back on a year ago. She was just getting out of prison, not sure how to express herself to Ray. Now she had more than expressed herself at one point. She was carrying this man’s baby.

Nora felt her phone buzz and she picked it up. Ray was calling.

“Hey, babe.” She smiled.

“Hey how are my favorite girls?” She could almost hear his own smile from the other end of the line.

Nora placed her hand on her stomach. “We’re great, just organizing the bookshelves, well organizing the books into stacks for you to put them on the higher shelves in the order I want.”

Ray chuckled, one of her favorite sounds in the world. “I would be honored to help you organize your books. I’ll be home in like ten minutes but I may pick up food first, are you and peanut craving anything?”

Nora thought for a minute, she wasn’t really craving any food in particular… “hmm I’m not that hungry but if I you could get a chocolate milkshake with bits of butterfinger in it I’ll marry you and have your babies.”

Ray laughed again. “You already did that, Nora but yes I will stop somewhere and get what you ask. You also probably need real food, how does a burger and fries sound? All unhealthy just the way you like it.”

“That sounds perfect. I know you’re still a little mad that this baby is just making my unhealthy food choices worse rather than make me crave healthy things.”

“She got you to try kale! That’s all that matters.”

“And I will never eat it again, pregnant or not.” She laughed. “I’ll see you in a little bit, I love you, babe.”

“Love you, too.” He hung up.

Nora put her phone down and opened her music app. She selected a radio and it started playing over the Bluetooth speaker sitting on Ray’s desk. Nora had tried to catch up with the times on music taste but she still went back to the songs she heard as a kid. And musical soundtracks. Anything from the years 2000-2016 were fair game and she honestly preferred anything from 2007-2012 in particular.

Nora grabbed the lip of Ray’s desk to pull herself up from the floor to take a break, stretch her legs, and get some water. She let the playlist continue as she made her way downstairs and grabbed a glass of water. When she came back up, the song had changed. It started with an acoustic guitar which could be literally any slow song from the era.  
She heard the male voice float through her ears and sat back down on the floor, resuming her work, not even really paying attention to the song. Until she heard _“fathers be good to your daughters”_ and then she couldn’t pay attention to anything other than the song.

Nora swallowed hard, she’d heard the song before and usually turned it off before she could have much of a reaction but Nora was frozen on the spot, tears collecting in her eyes. Her father had given her an almost too normal childhood. Sure, probably the hiding in plain sight thing for all of his illegal activity but then he basically used her the rest of her life. He sacrificed himself for her at the very end but none of it would’ve been necessary if he’d just been her dad. Not some crazy psychopath hell bent on destruction and wanted nothing more than to take her with him on his path. It wasn’t bonding, it wasn’t anything that looked healthy.

She’d been down this spiral before, when it hit her no one would be there to walk her down the aisle. She had no actual blood relatives left to speak of, she hated that after all the pain she’d been through she finally made some strides to have a normal life for that to be the one thing she still didn’t have. She’d been crying about it the day of her wedding after being thoroughly convinced that Ray was making a mistake in marrying her and Zari finally was able to help calm her about after she talked to Ray about thinking he made a mistake. She ended up asking if Zari could walk her down the aisle and it had been a good choice because Zari was such a beloved friend now.

But there was still this gaping hole in her heart her parents left, their criminal actions aside. They left a void. She was about to become a mother herself and she couldn’t imagine leaving Tori an orphan would do everything in her power to make sure it would not happen. She knew Ray hadn’t had his dad in the picture either and his mom was consistently distant. What a pair they were. Nora finally let the tears flow freely and covered her mouth to prevent herself from full on sobbing.

She would be so much better than her parents. She would love this child the right way. She wanted to be a good mom. Her mom had been a strong woman until the very end but she did some terrible things that definitely affected her parenting. Nora wanted to be the type of mom that was always there for her daughter, would give her real genuine advice and help her daughter through whatever she felt was big in her life at the time. She wasn’t sure her advice would be as good as Ray’s but she would try her damn best to make her daughter at least feel heard.

And Ray. Ray was made for fatherhood. She’d seen him at the holiday party last year with Professor Stein’s grandson. They wanted the Steins to still feel a part of the family even after Martin’s death and since Ray had known him when Ray was in college, it meant a lot that they were able to go to the party. Clarissa and Lily had hosted and Nora watched Ray with little Ronnie and knew, just _knew_ in that moment that whenever she would have that man’s baby, he would be the best dad.

Happiness surged through her, hitting her like a ton of bricks and turned her sad tears about what she didn’t have with her parents into tears of joy over how wonderful Ray would be as a parent. The tears kept coming, long after the song faded into another 2000s ballad. She knew everything would be okay with Tori because Tori would have Ray Palmer for a father. She sat there crying, running circles on her stomach, trying to ground herself when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Nora jumped and looked to see a very concerned Ray.  
“Nora? What’s wrong? I heard you crying and came running, is the baby okay? Do we need to go the hospital? Are you okay?”

Nora could only manage “the baby is fine,” to help relieve part of his stress. Nora let him help her stand up and she immediately fell into his arms. She didn’t want to let go. She breathed in his scent and he rubbed her back in soothing circles. She felt their baby kick against her stomach, sure that Ray felt it too since they were pressed together. She finally stopped crying enough to pull away and Ray reached out to wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.

“Are you okay? I know the baby is fine but if you’re upset or don’t feel good talk to me. Did I do something to upset you?”

Nora let out a small laugh through her tears. “You absolutely did not do anything wrong.” She took one of his hands and placed it on her stomach. “You’ve given me a wonderful gift and I was thinking about all of the ways you’ll be an awesome dad. I know our daughter has won the lottery just by you being her dad. I’m so lucky she gets to have a father like you and not like the kind either one of us had.”

Ray kissed her softly and moved his hand to find where Tori was kicking. He felt the foot against his palm and smiled. He kissed Nora again and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m going to try my best to be the best dad possible for her. And I know for a fact that you will be the best mom. What brought all of this on though?”

Nora led him over to a couch in his office and curled up with him on it. She intertwined their fingers over where Tori was movie and she looked down at her stomach as she started. “I was listening to music and a song came on that just reminded me all over again that I didn’t have the most stellar parents and I know you didn’t either and then I got scared that because of that I’m going to be a terrible mother but then I realized that Tori’s going to be just fine, because she’ll have you as her father.”

“She’s going to be just fine because she has you as her mother.” He kissed the side of her head. “The fact that you’re worried about this just proves that you’re going to be amazing. Now, I brought you your food, I even got you a large chocolate and butterfinger milkshake with lots of whipped cream. Are you hungry?”

Nora laughed. “Yeah, I think after all of this crying I’ve worked up an appetite.” She pulled Ray in for a hug. “Thank you, Ray, you’re the best husband and you’re going to be such an amazing dad.”

Ray hugged her back and then pulled away. “I’ll always be here for you and for our family.” He placed a hand on her stomach. “C’mon, let’s go eat.” He took her hand and led her downstairs.

“Did you get me the milkshake?” Nora asked and sniffled.

Ray smiled. “I got you an _extra large_ milkshake.”


End file.
